


Love, Elio

by scarletbegonias37



Series: Call Me By Your Love [2]
Category: Call Me By Your Name (2017), Call Me by Your Name - André Aciman
Genre: Crossover, Fluff, M/M, Ridiculous
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-05
Updated: 2019-02-05
Packaged: 2019-10-22 23:02:11
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,629
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17671787
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/scarletbegonias37/pseuds/scarletbegonias37
Summary: Once again, the LOVE, SIMON/CALL ME BY YOUR NAME crossover that no one requested, wanted, or needed, but which I wrote anyway because it made me laugh.This one is from Elio's perspective.





	Love, Elio

Elio loved New York City. It was, as the musical said, the greatest city in the world, and he’d always wanted to live here. It was where the most action was. The greatest museums, art galleries, architecture. Most importantly for his career goals: the best symphony halls, orchestras, and other classical music venues outside of Paris, where he’d already spent plenty of time in his childhood. And the most lively, fun, outgoing young people.

He was jumping up and down, sweating, Simon screaming the lyrics to the music in his ear, shaking his hair in the mosh pit, in unison with a hundred other people doing the same thing. He felt more alive than he ever had…well, almost ever.

Until.

Elio would have felt those eyes boring into him even if he’d been turned in the opposite direction, instead of catching them out of the corner of his vision. Dark, hooded, searing into him. Burning him like he’d been hit by both barrels of a flaming gun.

He’d memorized where Oliver lived from his too-few postcards and letters, of course, and he’d mapped it out – East 56th street, right on the water – but only because he was making a specific effort not to go within ten blocks of the place. He didn’t want Oliver to ever think he was stalking him – it was bad enough that he was here, in this city, at Oliver’s university, for god’s sake. But it wasn’t his fault. He was here for the music program, and all of the aforementioned reasons. And Oliver was supposed to be gone by now, with his PhD in hand, teaching at some other university somewhere. Something had gone wrong, and he hadn’t turned his dissertation in on time. That was his fault, not Elio’s. Elio would never have come here if he had known.

At least, that’s what he told himself.

This wasn’t Oliver’s scene – punk rock, downtown below Canal Street, in some dusty old dive? He stood out like a sore thumb in his crisp white button-down and khaki shorts. He looked like a yuppie tourist who had wandered in by accident. And oh god, he had seen Elio noticing him now, and he was straightening up, lifting his back up from the wall.

Elio was going to vomit, or cry, or fall to his knees. He didn’t know which one, but he’d stopped moving, and Simon – who, thank god, was the person most attuned to nervous energy that Elio had ever met – had realized it and stopped jumping too. “What’s wrong?” he asked immediately, and followed Elio’s vision. “Oh god. That’s _him_ , isn’t it?”

Bram had stopped pogoing now too. “Who’s _him_?” he asked, confused, looking back and forth between the two of them.

Elio’s mouth was dry. He couldn’t form words. Fortunately, Simon was having a panic attack on his behalf. “We have to leave right this minute,” Simon said to Bram, franticly running a hand through his already-wild hair.

Garrett, the final member of their group tonight and their token straight friend, finally noticed that something was happening and stopped jumping as well. “What up, my dudes?” he hollered, clapping Bram on the back cheerfully, and then saw their stricken faces. “Oh. Oh!” He immediately gave a fake cry of pain, and doubled over partway. “Someone kicked me in the stomach in the pit, bros,” he groaned loudly. “And I have diarrhea. We gotta go NOW,” he added, practically yelling.

Seemed like this crew had a well-practiced emergency escape plan. Elio had never been more grateful to call them his friends.

“Oh yeah,” Bram said, his eyes opening wide, gesticulating wildly. “Simon, I completely forgot. We have to go do that thing that we have to do. Right away, right?” Both he and Garrett were terrible actors, though Elio had to appreciate the sentiment. Simon rolled his eyes; as the thespian of the group, he was clearly not impressed. “Good enough. Let’s just get the fuck out of here,” Simon said.

Elio was definitely going to drop dead here and now. Oliver was taking a step toward them. “I don’t think we need an excuse,” he said, tipping his head back and pinching his nose, as he’d learned to do, but he could already feel a trickle of blood escaping from one nostril down to his chin.

“Oh shit,” Simon exclaimed, and clapped one sleeve over Elio’s face. Elio was touched; Simon was a truly loyal and selfless friend. That was his favorite jacket. Elio would buy him another one, but he knew it wouldn’t be the same to Simon, who was sentimental and nostalgic about things.

“Looks like pumpkins are turning into carriages. It’s getaway time,” Garrett declared, whipping his long blonde hair back and grabbing Bram’s hand, who grabbed Elio’s in turn, and Simon brought up the rear, holding Elio’s other hand while still keeping his sleeve pressed to Elio’s nose. They weaved their way out of the crowd nimbly, the two soccer jocks in the lead ducking around obstacles and people expertly. Elio only managed one glance back, and maybe he should have been more gratified to see that Oliver looked upset, and not a little angry.

***

 _Hope you got home okay last night. Let me know. That looked like a gnarly nosebleed._ 8:01 a.m.

 _Oh and also, let’s have another coffee sometime. Your mother would be pissed at me if I didn’t check in on you now and again._ 8:18 a.m.

“Don’t go,” Simon said decisively, shaking sugar into his iced coffee. They were sitting in a diner, slightly hungover – their fake IDs were working out well so far – and shoveling in pancakes, bacon, biscuits, hash browns. At least, Simon and Bram were. Elio was just pushing around bits of his omelet on his plate. “Tell him you’re fine so he’ll stop texting you, and then tell him you don’t want to see him.” Simon took a huge bite of his pancakes.

“You think?” Elio asked, doubtfully.

“Well,” Simon hedged, “Maybe that seems like you care too much. Just avoid him. Tell him you’re really busy with classes and piano practice. Tell him maybe later, and then just let ‘later’ turn into ‘never’.”

“Maybe,” Elio grimaced.

“Or let him swing!” Simon exclaimed. “Tell him you’ll meet him, and then don’t show up. Or cancel at the last minute. Tell him you forgot about it. That’ll show him!”

“So I should be straightforward about not wanting to see him, but also avoid him, and also string him along?” Elio summed up, confused.

Simon ran both hands through his hair and sighed in frustration. “You sound like Leah. Just, you know, don’t give him what he wants. He’s fucking with you.”

“He doesn’t want anything,” Elio frowned. “He’s just being polite. Like when we met up for coffee before – it was like, what you’d do for any son of any professor you’d interned with. Obligatory.” He collapsed back in the booth, slumping down until his head barely reached the top of the seat. “You saw how he was looking at me. He hates me. He was probably coming over to tell me to stay out of his territory.”

“Is that how you interpreted that?” Bram blurted out, with a tone of surprise. He’d been very quiet in this conversation so far, unsurprisingly. He was very private about his own feelings – although Elio strongly suspected he was much different with Simon behind closed doors – so he wasn’t the type to probe others about theirs, and Elio didn’t expect him to offer much advice beyond do you, live your life, which was Bram’s typical contribution to emotional talks.

“Of course,” Elio replied. “Didn’t you see it?”

Bram coughed and started to say “I—ow!“, stopping to reach down and rub his shin. Simon had obviously kicked him under the table, and was now glaring daggers at him.

“I think what my amazing and perfect boyfriend MEANT to say is that he looked terrible, like a man haunted by bad decisions and nightmares, and he was definitely NOT going to say anything about how he resembles a classic 1940s movie star,” Simon glowered.

Elio smirked wryly. Well, not that it was exactly rewarding, but at least he knew he wasn’t blind or delusional. Bram and Simon had obviously discussed it last night after they got home, and seen that Elio had not been exaggerating at all: Oliver was stunning. Impossible to ignore. Impossible to forget. “Oh, was he.” He turned to Bram, who was looking anywhere but in his face. “Come on, Bram. Just tell me what you think.”

“It’s just…” Bram trailed off, and shot Simon an apologetic look. “It’s just that he didn’t look like he hates you to me. He didn’t look like that at all.”

“Let’s just change the subject,” Simon continued to glare, stabbing into his pancakes sharply. “Leah’s coming to visit in two weeks and we have to figure out what we’re going to do to get Garrett to not ask her and Abby to threesome with him. Our friend group is already stressed enough.”

Elio sat back and let Simon commence to babbling about other people’s problems, which were, he had to admit, a lot more entertaining to hear about than his own.

***

Later on, when they were alone, however, he had to ask Bram what he’d meant about Oliver’s look.

Bram sighed, looking up from his textbook, his highlighter poised over the page. “Simon was right. I shouldn’t have said anything. I’m sorry, Elio.”

“Just tell me,” Elio urged. He knew Bram would be honest – it was one of his best traits, one of the things Elio liked about him the most, as a friend. Bram was a terrible liar, and though he didn’t always or even often reveal his opinions, when he did so you could be guaranteed that he genuinely meant them, and they were probably sound and well thought out.

“It’s just that…” Bram paused and closed his textbook, looking over at Elio seriously. “I used to look at Simon like that, back before we got together. I thought I was being so obvious, like hearts were just soaring out of my eyes. And Simon didn’t pick it up at all. He thought I didn’t like him, that I was ignoring him, even. He totally did not get it.” He took a deep breath. “I didn’t realize that that’s what it looks like until I saw him – that guy.”

Elio took a shaky breath of his own. He didn’t realize he’d been holding air in. “What does it look like?” he asked, tentatively.

Bram looked slightly troubled, hesitant. “Like he was trying very hard not to let hearts fly out of his eyes,” he admitted, finally.

“Oh,” Elio exhaled.

“Listen, it’s none of my business, and I really don’t want to influence you,” Bram said, somewhat pained. “But…if you don’t want to see him, you should tell him. And if you do…well, maybe it would be good closure if you did. I know it’s a really complicated situation and breakups are always terrible. And I’m not saying you two could ever work it out, definitely not if he’s going to stay in the closet. But…” he paused again before continuing, “…I don’t think he knows it’s over for you. If it is. So maybe you ought to tell him, so he can really move on and let you go.”

Elio sat with that for a long moment, processing. “Hmm.” He didn’t know what else to say. “You’re a good friend, Bram,” he finally mustered up.

“I try,” Bram smiled kindly at him and shrugged, and then turned back to his studying, like nothing had happened.

***

Twenty minutes into the coffee meet-up, Elio was sorry that he’d come. They had made as much small talk as they could muster, and Elio felt it had been a valiant effort on his part, since he was no good at small talk to begin with. They’d talked about Elio’s father’s current project, excavating a newly discovered site in Crete. They’d talked about Oliver’s thesis, a little bit – apparently, he’d found some recently translated sources that had caused him to revise and miss the submission deadline, but he was progressing now and should be finally done soon (Elio noted, however, that Oliver said this in the vague, roundabout, maddening way of his in which his tone sounded like he was confiding in you, but he wasn’t really giving you any real information at all). They’d made infuriatingly idle chattering noises about how exciting New York City was, how beautiful in the autumn. Both of them had carefully avoided mentioning Oliver’s fiancée, the proverbial elephant in the room.

Elio could not keep his eyes from wandering to the clock. Simon had promised to call him 40 minutes in and pretend he had an emergency Elio had to help with. Apparently that was a thing Americans did.

Unfortunately, both he and Simon had overestimated how long Elio could possibly tolerate the agony of being in Oliver’s presence, unable to touch him, not even to shake his hand, not acknowledging that they were ever more to each other than friendly acquaintances at best.

Elio’s stomach churned. The coffee was terrible.

Oliver coughed softly, catching his attention again. “So,” he said lightly, twirling his cup around on the table. “I noticed you didn’t sign up for any archaeology courses this semester.”

Elio gave him a sharp look. How could he know that? Had he asked around his entire department? “With Samuel Perlman for a father? I practically have a Master’s in it already. There’s nothing they can teach me,” he sniffed, realizing as he said it that he sounded, as ever, like a hopeless snob, when he hadn’t meant to. It was just the honest truth.

Oliver smiled fondly, however. “No, I don’t suppose there is,” he conceded. “You could probably teach one of the classes.”

“Boring,” Elio rolled his eyes, and smiled back for a half-second, forgetting himself, before letting his lips drop back into what he hoped was not an obvious sulking pout.

There was a long pause then, long enough that Elio considered whether he could make an excuse to leave. Oliver cleared his throat again, and said in the most casual possible voice, as though he were still commenting on the weather, “Your boyfriend’s cute. A little cuter than I thought you’d go for, actually. But cute.”

Elio stared at him, stunned. What the hell was he talking about? “What?” he managed to sputter out.

“I was worried about your nosebleed, but he looked like he had it covered,” Oliver shrugged, still cool as a cucumber. “He must be used to it. I guess he’s not _not_ your type. Very all-American.”

“Wait, Simon?!?” Elio exclaimed, finally having it click in for him. “Are you mad?”

“Oh, is it the preppy black guy then? He was good-looking too. I actually couldn’t decide which one it was.” Oliver’s eyes were starting to get a little steely, but other than that, he still seemed unphased.

“Which one WHAT was? I have no idea…” Elio trailed off, stunned.

“Just don’t tell me it’s the straight one,” Oliver muttered underneath his breath, finally looking down.

“What the fuck is THAT supposed to mean?!” Elio flared up, his face turning red.

Oliver looked at him again, dead in his eye. He had the nerve to not even look ashamed or guilty about what he said. His face was quite cold, in fact. “I thought you were beyond not knowing what I mean, Elio.”

Elio stared at him, his eyes wide, for another long moment, and then did something he had promised himself he would not do under any circumstance, not ever again since that first time Oliver had touched his shoulder, something which could only be described as immature and humiliating. But he had never been able to fight his feelings before in life, and now was no exception.

He stood up and ran out of the diner.

He could hear Oliver calling “Elio, wait--” behind him, and maybe if he’d said _Oliver, wait_ instead, Elio might have frozen, he might have crumbled to the ground right there, but Oliver had forgotten what to say to make him stay, and so he kept running.He knew that Oliver was too well-bred to run after him without paying the check, so he had a few seconds lead time. Unfortunately, he still didn’t know the city all that well, not that that mattered right now. Any direction would do, as long as it was away from Oliver.

The city had never seemed so crowded, and he’d never felt so clumsy, pushing past people and ducking into the first alleyway he could find, hoping to god Oliver hadn’t noticed which way he went.

No such luck. He was doubled over, his hands on his knees, breathing hard, willing himself not to have a panic attack when the familiar hand touched his back gently. He jerked to his feet.

“Elio…I’m so sorry. I am. Please forgive me. That was extraordinarily rude, and none of my business. I’m an asshole.” Oliver clasped his hands in front of him like he was pleading, genuinely apologetic.

Elio shook his head, looking to the side. “How dare you. How _dare_ you,” he said bitterly, unable to form any more coherent words.

“I know, I know,” Oliver looked down, then back at him again. “I have no right. I was jealous.”

Elio stared at him in disbelief. “Jealous?! Of what. I have friends. You have a fiancée.”

Oliver’s face clouded over with confusion.“You don’t know? Your mother didn’t tell you?”

“Tell me what?” Elio asked, still panting a little.

Now it was Oliver’s turn to appear rather stunned. “I don’t have a fiancée. We broke up almost two months ago…right after I saw you last.”

“Oh my god,” Elio spouted softly before he could stop himself, his mouth falling open in surprise.

“She said I’d been acting weird for months and she was right. Ever since I heard you were coming here. I couldn’t eat, I couldn’t sleep, I damn sure couldn’t work on my thesis. I’ve been a fucking mess, if you really want to hear it. Then I saw you that first week you were here and…I came home and I couldn’t touch her. I couldn’t even look at her. She could tell.” Oliver grimaced, seeming like the rush of confession caused him physical pain. “Not that she knows it’s you. But she knows I don’t love her, she knows I love someone else. She can _tell_.”

“You…she…you…” Elio was sure he had fallen into some alternate reality. Was Oliver really saying these things? What was happening?

“Yes. She could tell.” Oliver said with an unfathomable look, and Elio did the other thing, the last thing he swore he’d never do.

He flung himself into Oliver’s arms, and kissed him with all the fervor in his body. It was a stupid thing to do, so reckless, and yet it felt like heaven, like coming home.

Oh god, this was how kissing Oliver felt, he remembered now – he was like an oak tree, sturdy and strong, unbreakable, waiting & wanting to be climbed, surrounding Elio with his limbs and urging him onward. Elio wrapped one leg around him, bending to pull him in. He ignored the city, its hooting and hollering, the taxi cab horns, the general clamor. He was in love, and anyone could witness and judge it if they chose to.

***

Simon still didn’t entirely approve of the relationship, so Elio was subjected to what he supposed was the American version of a “sex talk”, the type some well-meaning suburban mother in a teen rom-com would have given to her hormonal son. Elio didn’t have the heart to tell Simon that in Europe this stuff was on public television, and his own mother was more frank about anatomy and STD prevention methods than poor Simon, who kept referring to “treasuring your gifts” – whatever that meant -- could possibly ever be. He did put the ridiculously large box of condoms that Simon had pushed toward him, however, in his backpack.

“Just remember, Elio,” Simon said earnestly, reaching across the table to touch Elio’s hand. “There’s no such thing as an emotional condom…for your heart.”

Bram, sitting next to him, suppressed a giggle that came out as a half-snort. Simon gave him the stink-eye.

“I appreciate that, Simon,” Elio said kindly, trying to keep the giggle out of his own voice. “Don’t worry. I promise you I’m being safe and careful. We’re going to take it slow this time…not like in Italy. We just threw ourselves into it and didn’t discuss the consequences. This time we want it to last. We’re only going to see each other minimally until he finishes his thesis anyway. I don’t need him getting distracted again.”

“What exactly does ‘minimally’ mean?” Bram asked with a slight, wry smile.

Elio blushed. “No more than twice a week. Well…maybe three times.”

Simon sighed. “We’re going to need to buy more condoms.”

Bram laughed outright then, but Elio’s mind was already a mile away, lying on a sun-dappled bed with the sounds of the city outside and below -- cars honking, music blasting, birds in the park chirping, rays of light shining off of beautiful wildly colored fall leaves. Oliver’s long, thick arms and huge hands spanning his entire back, reaching to lift his thighs, to let him climb up his body and devour his kiss. This was the greatest city in the world, and he fell in love with it more and more every day.

THE END

**Author's Note:**

> I never intended to write an Elio/Oliver fix-it but here it is. Leave a comment if you want more Elio/Simon crossovers!


End file.
